By Rosemary Wayo
Tamale, Aug 25, GNA – Alhaji Shani Alhassan Saibu, Northern Regional Minister has said site for the construction of a psychiatric Hospital in northern Ghana has been identified with advanced plans to get a contractor to move to site.
He said the initiative, under government’s agenda 111 flagship programme, would be a 90-bed capacity facility to be located on the Tamale-Yendi Road.
The Minister noted that the site for construction had already been handed over to the contractor even though construction was yet to begin.
He was speaking at a meeting held by Songtaba in Tamale to disseminate findings of a research conducted on prevalence of depression, quality of life and gender dynamics of women, who were accused of witchcraft in the Northern and North East Regions.
The research, which identified high prevailing depression and low quality of life among women at the four alleged witches’ camps in the north, was conducted by Songtaba with Technical support from Ghana Somubi Dwumadie, funded by UK aid.
The dissemination meeting aggregated representatives of various social organisations including the Department of Social Welfare, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Health Service.
The Regional Minister stated that getting a psychiatric hospital in the region was a confirmation of the fact that non-governmental organisations such as Songtaba had the attention of stakeholders to attend to the needs of citizenry.
He said government was interested in getting solutions to social challenges of people of the region particularly issues involving women.
GNA